The present invention relates generally to checkouts, automated self-checkouts, scan portals and pay station environments, and more particularly to systems and methods for increased speed and efficiency at checkouts, self-checkouts, scan portals and pay station environments.
In a retail type environment, the efficiency with which consumers are able to process, pay for and purchase their desired items factors into the expenses for a retail type establishment. The labor hours attributable to manning checkout counters contribute greatly to this expense. In a typical retail operation, a shopper gathers the items desired for purchase and presents them at a checkout counter, a clerk then scans or enters the items' barcodes and the point-of-sale (POS) system totals the shopper's bill. The clerk may apply any promotional discounts to the bill, the shopper tenders payment, and the items may be bagged for the shopper or customer. A number of self-service automated checkout terminal concepts have been developed in an attempt to reduce the need for a check-out clerk, thus reducing associated labor costs.
Toward reducing operating expenses, some businesses have implemented self-checkout counters. Self-checkout terminals are systems which are operated mainly by a customer without the direct aid of a checkout clerk. In such a system, the customer selects individual items for purchase, scans them across a scanner or screen and then places the selected items into a grocery type bag, if desired. This continues iteratively for the remainder of the items to be purchased. The customer then generally pays for his or her purchase at the self-service checkout terminal. Thus, a traditional self-service checkout terminal permits a customer to select, ring up and pay for his or her purchases without the direct assistance of the retailer's personnel at each individual checkout terminal. One attendant may attend to transaction problems at several checkouts.
Self-checkout systems are also useful in other types of unattended environments, such as, employee break rooms, hotel vending areas, business lobby settings or hospitals. One of the many benefits of self-checkout systems is that they allow quick consumer-operated transactions, resulting in high throughput. This high throughput has to be balanced with a transaction that allows new self-checkout users to feel in control of and comfortable with the transaction.
As there is a move toward utilization of the self-checkout, there is also a move to improve the self-checkout process and to address problems arising with the use of more self-checkouts by consumers. Generally, self-checkouts are utilized by consumers with a fairly small number of checkout items. More customers using the self-checkouts, may mean longer lines, so maximizing the speed of operation of the self-checkout becomes all the more important. Minimizing the number of times the items for purchase are handled, or the attention time devoted to each item, adds to the speed of the transaction.
In efforts to improve the traditional checkout and self-checkout, hybrid checkout scenarios are being created, where technologies such as scan tunnels and paystations create a checkout that is not the traditional fully attended checkout and is not the unattended self-checkout. Scan tunnel technology has been introduced that allows the consumer to place the items to be purchased on a conveyor belt. The conveyor belt carries the items through a scan tunnel that automatically scans the items, relieving the consumer and/or attendant of this responsibility. Consumers no longer need to scan each item and attendants are freed up to assist with bagging the purchased items and attending to exceptions occurring during the checkout process. Exceptions are delays to the transaction, such as for example, verifying the customers age in the purchase of an alcoholic beverage or tending to an item that did not scan properly.
In one example, centralized pay stations allow consumers to swiftly move through a transaction at a checkout and then for several checkout stations to be serviced by one pay station. One attendant can manage the pay station, freeing other attendants to focus on bagging and exception handling. While these advancements in checkout stations increase speed and throughput, Applicant foresees that other challenges are being created by the hybrid checkout enviromnents.
Attendant's responsibilities in scan tunnel (also known as “portal scanner”) scenarios involve two major functions: 1) bagging items and 2) handling exceptions. These functions will occur rapidly and in higher volume during most transactions than previously experienced with more traditional self-checkouts. Traditionally, brick-and-mortar retail transactions do not require front-end store employees to multi-task in the manner described above for the scan tunnel scenario. The traditional, staffed point-of-sale paradigm may have either a single cashier who scans first, then bags later, in a serial fashion, or may have both a cashier and a bagger. In either point-of-sale scenario, the level of multi-tasking described above is not required because the interaction with the system (scanning items, handling exceptions) and bagging are temporally and spatially separated, whether they are done by one employee or by two employees.
In self-checkout environments, the attendant may be required to assist with scanning items, handle exceptions, and bag items. However, the exception handling is typically limited to a single item that is also addressed in a sequence and does not involve the bagging of multiple items in rapid succession. The attendant usually only addresses the item that causes the one exception, and the consumer will bag all other items. The hybrid checkout places both the consumer and attendant into new roles at the checkout. Applicant's inventions address these and other challenges in the art and are directed to a new method and system for improving the customer experience at checkout terminals, for example, traditional checkout and self-checkout terminals and hybrid terminals.